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The Afghan War Review

President Obama on Thursday presented a review of his strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama formally presented the review at the White House. He was joined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others.

9:35 p.m.|Last Update

Afghanistan, and the American military, are running on a different clock, based on more intractable realities. Some of the most stubborn and important scourges they face — ineffectual governance, deep-rooted corruption and the lack of a functioning judicial system — the report barely glanced at.

“We have metrics that show increased progress,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul. “But those positives are extremely fragile because we haven’t done enough about governance, about corruption. 2010 was supposed to be a year of change, but it has not changed as much as we hoped.”

Even the toned-down, public version of the one-year progress report released by the White House on Thursday makes clear President Obama is still in search of the leverage he needs to persuade, or compel, Pakistan to close down the safe haven for terrorists and insurgents that has let a battered al Qaeda leadership and a vigorous Taliban survive.

He adds:

“The bottom line is that Pakistan is a country where we have little influence, little access and little credibility,” one of Mr. Obama’s aides said as the review was being put into its final form. “And we’re still struggling with re-wiring the place so that their interests and our interests are aligned.”

Join our Times colleagues on ‘Room for Debate’, where the discussion is ‘Obstacles to Leaving Afghanistan’ – “What signs of progress might realistically be expected at this point? What’s likely to be the most serious obstacle to any significant troop pull-out next summer?”

2:15 p.m.|Reactions

“The review shows progress in Afghanistan. Our strategy is sound and we have in place the necessary resources to accomplish it. Now we have to consolidate those gains and make them irreversible.”

In London, a statement issued by a spokesman for David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, welcomed the review, saying it was “consistent with the British assessment of the NATO campaign” and that success in Afghanistan was the British government’s “highest foreign policy priority”.

“We very much welcome President Obama’s review of the campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” said the statement.

“International forces are in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda must never again be allowed to use the country as a base from which to threaten the UK, the US and our allies. It is important to remember that this is why UK forces are there – to protect our national security.”

It added: “Like President Obama, we see 2011 as the year in which we have to make progress both lasting and irreversible.”

However, the Reuters news agency reported more skeptical reactions from lawmakers and security analysts in the United States and abroad:

“The ‘review’ was not a fundamental re-examination of policy toward Afghanistan but instead an occasion for reiterating a message aimed at shoring up support for the war.

“There are indeed some positive results in areas where NATO forces have concentrated their efforts, but they are more than offset by negative trends, including an overall increase in Taliban strength, in Afghanistan as a whole.

“The basic impediments to success in the counterinsurgency remain, including public resentment against foreign occupation and the lack of legitimacy for the Afghan government.”

FAWZIA KUFI, AFGHAN LAWMAKER

“The problem is not with the tactics, the problem is with the strategy, with the overall vision in this country and in the region.

“We need to focus on … the roots of terrorism, which in many cases is not in Afghanistan.”

REPRESENTATIVE IKE SKELTON, CHAIRMAN OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

“I was very encouraged, though not surprised, to read about the tactical progress we’ve made under the new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

“However, the report leaves many questions unanswered with regard to the way ahead. There is no clear outline of how our progress in the region can become sustainable, or how the Afghan government and security forces can prevent al Qaeda and the Taliban from re-establishing safe havens in the long term.”

While the overview appeared to take pains not to specifically criticize the Pakistani government, administration officials have expressed frustration over Pakistan’s willingness to hunt down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border.

In fact, two new classified intelligence reports offer a negative assessment, saying that although there have been gains for the United States and NATO in the war, the unwillingness of Pakistan to shut down militant sanctuaries in its lawless tribal region remains a serious obstacle. American military commanders say insurgents freely cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan to plant bombs and fight American troops and then return to Pakistan for rest and resupply.

1:45 p.m.|Clinton and Gates

After President Obama finished, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to highlight the non-military aspects of the administration’s efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying that while they faced “serious challenges”, nevertheless “key parts of our strategy are indeed working well”.

In Afghanistan, she said, “our surge is not simply military. We have expanded our presence from 320 civilians less than two years ago to 1,100 today” and in Pakistan:

“We have moved beyond a purely transactional relationship dominated by military cooperation. We now have broad engagement on both the civilian and military sides. Through the strategic dialogue that we established last year, Pakistan and the United States have begun a long-term commitment to work together not just on security but on energy, agriculture, education, health and other areas that directly affect the daily lives of the Pakistani people.”

Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary, was careful to spell out limited goals for the military effort against the Taliban, saying: “the whole idea in the military strategy is to halt the momentum of the Taliban, reverse it, degrade their capabilities and deny them control of major population centers.”

Simultaneously, he said, the aim was to “build the capacity of the Afghan national security forces to take on a degraded Taliban.” Withdrawing troops would be “conditions-based”, he said, adding: “In terms of what that line looks like beyond July 2011, I think the answer is, we don’t know at this point. But the hope is that as we progress, that those drawdowns will be able to accelerate.”

He conceded that the campaign in Marja in southern Afghanistan had “taken longer and been more difficult than anticipated”, and while claiming “significant progress” he said commanders believed they would be “in a pretty good place in Marja” next summer, “so six months from now”.

He said the ongoing offensive in southern Afghanistan meant that “as we expected and warned, U.S., coalition and Afghan forces are suffering more casualties as we push into these areas long controlled by the Taliban.” Nevertheless he maintained the upbeat mood, maintaining:

“As a result of the tough fight under way, the Taliban control far less territory today than they did a year ago. The bottom line is that the military progress made in just the past three to four months, since the last of the additional 30,000 U.S. troops arrived, has exceeded my expectations.”

During questioning, however he was challenged about the perception that the review was a “sugar-coating” of the realities in Afghanistan. He denied this, saying that the administration had throughout been “realistic about the prospects”.

Secretary Clinton was asked how the administration could continue to wage a war with little public support, the questioner citing an ABC News/Washington Post poll in which 60 percent of the American people reportedly said the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting any more.

She replied that the campaign was “critical to our national security”, adding that she was “well aware” of public concern, but that “the diagnostic review that we have just undertaken, that we’ve described to you, has concluded that we are making gains on that strategy.”

13:00 p.m.|Obama: Core Goal

President Obama reiterated his administration’s central priorities in Afghanistan:

“I’ve been very clear about our core goal. It’s not to defeat every last threat to the security of Afghanistan, because ultimately it is Afghans who must secure their country. And it’s not nation-building, because it is Afghans who must build their nation. Rather, we are focused on disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and preventing its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.”

He said the three areas of strategy upon which they were focusing were: “our military effort to break the Taliban’s momentum and train Afghan forces so they can take the lead, our civilian effort to promote effective governance and development, and regional cooperation, especially with Pakistan, because our strategy has to succeed on both sides of the border.”

He said they would:

“begin the transition of responsibility to Afghans and start reducing American forces next July” and that “we are moving toward a new phase in Afghanistan, a transition to full Afghan lead for security that will begin early next year and will conclude in 2014, even as NATO maintains a long-term commitment to training and advising Afghan forces.”

12:15 a.m.|Obama Speaks

President Obama, presenting the review at the White House, said:

“When I announced our new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last December, I directed my national security team to regularly assess our efforts and to review our progress after one year. That’s what we’ve done consistently over the course of the past 12 months, in weekly updates from the field, in monthly meetings with my national security team, and in my frequent consultations with our Afghan, Pakistani and coalition partners.”

He said, “we are on track to achieve our goals”, but cautioned that the war would remain a “very difficult endeavor”.

The president conceded that progress had not been fast enough in Pakistan, where jihadis were taking refuge, and warned that the gains which had been made were fragile, and reversible.

“In short, Al Qaeda is hunkered down,” he said. “It will take time to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda and it remains a ruthless and resilient enemy bent on attacking our country. But make no mistake. We are going to remain relentless in disrupting and dismantling that terrorist organization.”

(Federal News Service and The Associated Press)

10:28 a.m.|Reuters Report: Critics

Reuters news agency quotes critics of the Obama adminstration’s Afghan review, questioning its claims of progress on some fronts, including governance and corruption.

By Missy Ryan, Washington, Dec. 16, Reuters:

Excerpt:

“Buried in the summary is the acknowledgment of two significant challenges for the stabilization effort: the continuing Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan and the poor quality of governance in Afghanistan,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington. “In fact, both issues remain enormous obstacles for success,” she said.

And:

In the absence of major strides by Afghan forces, who are growing rapidly in numbers but still learning to shoot and in many cases to read, those gains “cannot be maintained without continued U.S. involvement, both military and financial,” said Caroline Wadhams, an expert at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

And:

“I just don’t see what kind of further pressure the Americans can place on the Pakistanis. It’s sort of a risky thing,” said Kamran Bokhari, director for Middle East and South Asia with intelligence firm STRATFOR. “On one hand, you’ve got to get more cooperation from the Pakistanis. But on the other hand, you don’t want to apply too much pressure that leads to tensions with the Pakistanis that undermine the whole strategy.”

10:07 a.m.|Read The Overview

10:00 a.m.|Afghan Defense Ministry: No Major Change Expected

Gen. Muhammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, told local television he did not expect the review to result in significant changes in the American strategy, reports Ray Rivera of The Times’s Kabul bureau.

“Afghanistan has been consulted in this regard and the military strategy was associated with some progress,” Gen. Azimi said. “We are expecting to see the announcement after the review. We should not expect lots of changes.”

9:20 a.m.|German Troops to Start Leaving Afghanistan 2011

The Associated Press reports from Berlin confirmation that German troops will start their withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2011, as planned, and that the last of Germany’s troops, currently numbering 4,600, will leave by 2014.

“Good governance remains an important benchmark, but if we are more realistic then good-enough governance – which we can reach in the foreseeable future in Afghanistan – is satisfactorily good.”

He added: “In Afghanistan, we are defending our own security. That is why this mission is right, but it is also right that it cannot go on forever.”

The New York Times

German troops are stationed in northern cities such as Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz, from where Times Kabul bureau chief Alissa J. Rubin has just filed a report saying:
“Although the numbers of American and German troops in the north have more than doubled since last year, insecurity has spread, the Taliban are expanding their reach, and armed groups that purportedly support the government are terrorizing local people and hampering aid organizations, according to international aid workers, Afghan government officials, local residents and diplomats.”

In our multimedia feature ‘A Year At War’ [see right] Times correspondent James Dao and photographer Damon Winter have also just filed their latest reports from the men and women of First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division, who are deployed to Kunduz and the surrounding area as part of the Afghanistan surge.

9:00 a.m.|Assange Granted Bail in London

As President Obama prepares for his Afghan war review, in London a British court has ordered that Julian Assange be released on bail while he fights extradition to Sweden on alleged sex offenses, Ravi Somaiya and Alan Cowell report for The Times. Mr. Assange is the founder of WikiLeaks, which published confidential American material relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and some 250,000 American diplomatic documents.

8:30 a.m.|Afghan Soldiers Killed by NATO Claim

KABUL — Four Afghan soldiers were mistakenly killed by NATO air forces in southern Afghanistan and at least ten civilian members of a wedding party were killed by a land mine in the west of the country hours before the Afghan war review was due to be presented by President Obama, Sangar Rahimi and Walid Fazly report from The Times bureau in Afghanistan.

The New York Times

Giving preliminary details of the reported strike by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Gen. Muhammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, confirmed the soldiers’ deaths. Speaking by telephone, he said: “According to our information, last night four Afghan National Army Soldiers were killed in the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province. They were killed by ISAF/NATO air forces bombardment. The soldiers were from a battalion of the 205th Miawand Afghan National Army corps, based in Musa Qala district.”

Sayed Malook, an Afghan National Army officer in the 205th Afghan National Army corps headquarters in Helmand said in a telephone interview that the four soldiers were on a dismounted routine patrol in the area when they were bombed by NATO air forces, who apparently confused them for hostile forces.

An initial statement released by International Security Assistance Force said that an “assessment team is looking into an air strike incident in Helmand province. There are reports four Afghan National Army soldiers were killed during an ISAF air strike.”

The statement said that the air strike happened “after a combined Afghan and ISAF patrol came under small arms fire from insurgents. The patrol called for a close air support mission in which a coalition aircraft positively identified the insurgent firing position and conducted an air strike. More information will be released once the assessment is complete.”

The New York Times

The wedding party explosion was in Herat province in western Afghanistan, as members of an extended family were traveling to the ceremony. Colonel Noor Khan Nikzad, a spokesman for the provincial police chief, said their vehicle was hit by the land mine around 11 a.m. on Thursday morning in Kushk-e-Kuhna district, on a road often used by NATO and Afghan security forces carrying out patrols and traveling to the district headquarters.

“Ten people on board including men, women and children were killed and four others were severely wounded,” said the colonel, speaking by telephone from Herat. Blaming the “enemies of peace and stability”, he said “the land mine may have been planted by the opposition to blow up Afghan or foreign forces.”

7:45 a.m.|NYT Kabul Bureau Chief’s Initial Reaction

Alissa J. Rubin, the Kabul bureau chief of The Times, gives her initial on-the-ground assessment of the Afghan war review details so far:

“The overview of President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan sounded themes that the Pentagon and American diplomats have reiterated over the past several months and in the last two reports to Congress. Although the tone of the report summary was modest, and emphasized the fragility of the military gains, the overall impression was of a war going more the right way than the wrong way — at least based on the measures highlighted in the report.

“Perhaps the most striking aspect was that although the beginning of the withdrawal remained 2011, the new date for any substantial withdrawal had been pushed back three years to 2014. The change, although it could be seen as entrenching western countries in Afghanistan for years to come, appears to have President Hamid Karzai’s support and ensures that the west — with its protective troops and billions of dollars in spending — will see him through his presidential term.

“The report, while it does not mention specific dates farther into the future, notes NATO’s “enduring commitment” beyond 2014. Unmentioned in the overview, which is all that has been released so far, is the continuing cost of the war, either in blood or treasure. Thirty percent more NATO soldiers have been killed this year than last year, and the financial cost of the war has not so far been discussed. We will have to wait to see if there is more on that in the full presentation by President Obama later today.”

7:20 a.m.|Karzai Statement

President Hamid Karzai’s office released a statement confirming that President Obama had consulted him on the review, reports The Times bureau in Kabul. The statement, released from the heavily-fortified Arg Palace in the Afghan capital, said:

“Both presidents agreed that security gains had been made in many areas in Afghanistan and that improvement in security and stability in some provinces required to be consolidated. Both presidents also emphasized that a sustainable success required focus on the sanctuary of the terrorists.”

The palace release said that President Karzai offered his condolences for the death of Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2009, who died Monday. The statement noted that Mr. Holbrooke “was a seasoned diplomat who had served his nation well.”

6:30 a.m.|Review Summary Released

In Afghan Report Sees July Troop Pullouts Despite PerilsHelene Cooper reports for The New York Times that a five-page unclassified overview of the review has been released which “concludes that American forces can begin withdrawing on schedule in July, despite finding uneven signs of progress in the year since the president announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops”. However she writes that the summary itself “shed little light” on the scale of any troop withdrawal next year.

She continues:

The summary said the United States continues to kill leaders of Al Qaeda and diminish its capacity to launch terrorist attacks from the region. It cited some signs that the United States and its allies have halted or reversed inroads by the Taliban in Afghanistan and strengthened the ability of Afghan forces to secure their country, but acknowledged that the gains are fragile and could be easily undone unless more progress is made towards hunting down insurgents operating from havens in neighboring Pakistan.

The summary concludes that there has been progress in southern Afghanistan, she writes:

“Night raids by special forces operatives and increased security measures in local villages … have reduced overall Taliban influences in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar and Helmand provinces.”

However she says that the review characterizes progress in Pakistan as “substantial but also uneven”. One section of the summary says:

“The denial of extremist safe havens will require greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan”.

The Associated Press reports:

Obama’s comments from the White House briefing room will not take on the tone of a major presidential address. He is expected to cede the spotlight quickly to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will field questions from reporters.

This year has been the deadliest in the war for U.S. forces. At least 480 American troops have been killed in 2010, and more than 2,100 have died since the conflict began in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The review took place over the last two months, led by Obama’s national security staff, with input from across government agencies and from commanders in the war zones.

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